WARREN ELLIS is a graphic novelist and author of the NYT best-selling novel GUN MACHINE. His graphic novel GLOBAL FREQUENCY is being developed for television by Jerry Bruckheimer and FOX. He is the writer of the graphic novel RED, adapted into the film starring Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren. His next book is NORMAL from FSG.

This, However, Is Not Okay

A little bit of scanning put up for free on the web every now and then, I’m okay with. It doesn’t hurt anybody. This, however, is not okay. And I’ve seen it a lot over the years, this is just today’s example emailed to me:

Taking something that’s mine and getting people to give you money for it? I’m going to come looking for you. Other people might too. See, when you just decide that you have the right to sell my work for your own profit… when you decide, in fact, that you want me to receive fewer royalties for my work, therefore making it harder for me to do things like buy new shoes for my daughter… that’s something I’m going to take an interest in.

What depresses me is that he probably doesn’t see what he’s doing as wrong. Just because you share stuff online (meeting the definition of “casual copying” or “fair use” by thinnest possible margin, if at all) does NOT mean that it’s yours and you can do whatever you want with it.

Warren, you find the guy, and I’ll hold him down while you beat him to death with your cane.

I’m sorry. I’m perhaps confused with regard to what is going on here. This person, or these people, are selling trade paperback editions of the Transmetropolitan series on ebay, correct?

If it’s something else, just disregard what follows.

To my mind, if the original purchaser paid for the books, likely when they were new (and so provided Mr. Ellis his royalties on those copies), the books are his to sell as he pleases. Further, the person posting the books on ebay has not merely decided he has the right to resell the books, it is the economic system in which ebay is embedded, unless I misunderstand the laws with regard to these things.

It seems to me to just be the selling of used books.

I like being able to buy used books. Used books are nice when one doesn’t have the cash to buy new copies, and the market exchange of used books is a little nicer when the items one wants are no longer in print.

Though, I wonder what Mr. Ellis’ position is with regard to the sale of used books that are not comic books. I assume it is the same as his position on comic books, but it may not be.

Perhaps I am just too free marketish in my outlook with regard to these matters.

Hopefully, I’m not pissing anyone off too much, or reading like a complete ass.

I was going to ask Simon’s question, too. I guess he and I share a bad habit of skimming what we read. So now – HELLS YEAH! Let’s go git ‘im!! C’mon, W – just give us our marching orders. Or maybe stomping orders… that’d be fun…

That’s not fucking cool.
It’s like what Thompson said about drugs. He liked the people that made them and gave them away, and hated scabby little dealers.
I never been alright with anyone reselling stuff they got for free, like the DVD/screener stuff you see in shitty convenience stores everywhere.

Thankfully, more and more people are realizing how stupid it is to fall for a scam like that, especially with all the file-downloading that goes on today. The “Please buy stuff I downloaded off the internet for lots of money” thing just doesn’t work as well as it used to.

The page is misleading, too, in that it seems like it’s for the full collection until one gets to the bottom of the page, where, hidden in a whole lotta text, is the fact that it’s on DVD. Someone with an Ebay account just needs to report the ass.

To a certain extent it’s the same argument as filesharing — I wouldn’t have bought a large chunk of Hitman pre-broadband without reading the series first, and it’s not something any of my comics-reading friends are into. The situation’s way too easily abused by profiteers, though.

eBay’s getting unusable in some respects because of the glut of counterfeit stuff… anyone wanting a demonstration, just browse the UK index for DVDs. Copied porn, mostly.

First time poster (longtime reader), but this post caught my attention. Definitely uncool.

Speaking hypothetically, if I were to find something via bittorrent, downloaded it, and found myself enjoying it, then I’d feel obligated to purchase the comics or TPBs to give something back to the artists involved. It’s a good tradeoff, hypothetically speaking, of course.

By the way, I’ve really enjoyed “Planetary”. Only got into it recently, read the entire series (thus far), plus the crossovers, hope to see it completed soon. And this is coming from someone who hadn’t read a comic book in ten years, but reading “V for Vendetta” seems to have started an avalanche (I’ve read BK Vaughan’s “Runaways”, your series, with “Y: The Last Man” coming up next, and more of your work, of course).

Sharing and downloading scanned material I have few moral problems with. That’s about the only way to get hold of “Miracleman” or old issues of “Hellblazer” (like “Shoot”, which is also available direcly on the net: http://www.kabukivice.ndo.co.uk/shoot.htm) THIS, however, is just plain theft, both from author and customer.
And what idiot with internet access would want to pay money for stuff he could DL for free?
(And I _really_ can’t imagine reading through the entire Transmetropolitan-series on a computerscreen.)

Between shit like this, the corporately funded file sharing networks, the RIAA/MPAA mafia and the shrill bleating from the everything-should-be-free crowd, the Internet has pretty much non-consentaully buggered Copyright into a bleeding, quivering mass.

Jesus, Warren! You have acolytes! Not that I don’t agree, mind. Get Grant Morrison to throw bad juju at these transgressors! In fact, better idea– tell this guy you’ll spare him if he pays some dues and releases Flex Mentallo onto the net. Karma is served!

I can’t imagine that he could make much money of of that–while it seems to me that online/computer-based distribution of comics might take place someday, there’s something about holding a comic in your hand–even if you have a hi-res comp. monitor/TV of some sort, I don’t see how you could blow the page shots up to full screen size and preserve the graphic quality…actually, the only people I can imagine being interested would be uber-Transmet fans who just can’t resist buying anything related to the book–I can see someone purchasing it for novelty value, but not as a substitute for the actual comic. I would think that E-Bay would be open to shutting the sale down, assuming it’s violating copyright-reproduction-etc laws in some way…

Here is something, though: I can understand putting someone putting their collection on their hd (or cd/dvd for personal use–I mean, at some point being a comic book nerd gets to be a space issue. At some point The Girlfriend demands that closet be liberated, in the name of shoe storage and ski gear. Even with what I sad about the lesser quality, I’d pass on the majority of the stuff I hold on to (all of which I hold on to out of sentimality/the intention to corrupt the mind of any future progeny of mine) if I could scan it. Do you think that’s alright? Because there’s a basic risk, there–even if a person does not, at the time, intend to send their complete scanned set of Whatever into the world, at some point they might, or someone else might, and after that what’s done is done.

“At some point The Girlfriend demands that closet be liberated, in the name of shoe storage and ski gear.”

You need to get a new girlfriend, man. The only response to that kind of ultimatum is to load all said shoes/ski gear into a suitcase and fling it out the window with instructions for her to follow in the manner most convivial to her. She can be certain her new apartment will have far more shoe storage space.

Like a woman’s shoes, a man’s books are sacrosanct and “love me, love my books” is the whole of the law.

Back on topic: This eBay pirate needs some liberal application of the Chair-leg of Truth.